staying in this part of
the world, and so perhaps have the others. For instance, the Professor
is very fond of those old skeletons down in the cave," and I paused.

"Yes, Doctor, and the Captain is very fond of something much better than
a skeleton, and so are we all. Well, we've got to see it through, but
somehow I don't think that every one of us will have that luck, though
it's true that when a man has lived fairly straight according to his
lights a few years more or less don't matter much one way or the other.
After all, except you gentlemen, who is there that will miss Samuel
Quick?"

Then without waiting for an answer, drawing himself up straight as a
ramrod he marched off to assist some popinjays of Abati officers, whom
he hated and who hated him, to instil the elements of drill into a newly
raised company, leaving me to wonder what fears or premonitions filled
his honest soul.

But this was not Quick's principal work, since for at least six hours
of every day he was engaged in helping Oliver in our great enterprise of
driving a tunnel from the end of the Tomb of Kings deep into the solid
rock that formed the base of the mighty idol of the Fung. The task
was stupendous, and would indeed have been impossible had not Orme's
conjecture that some passage had once run from the extremity of the cave
toward the idol proved to be perfectly accurate. Such a passage indeed
was found walled up at the back of the chair containing the bones of the
hunchbacked king. It descended very sharply for a distance of several
hundred yards, after which for another hundred yards or more its walls
and roof were so riven and shaky that, for fear of accidents, we found
it necessary to timber them as we went.

At last we came to a place where they had fallen in altogether, shaken
down, I presume, by the great earthquake which had destroyed so much
of the ancient cave-city. At this spot, if Oliver's instruments and
calculations could be trusted, we were within about two hundred feet
of the floor of the den of lions, to which it seemed probable that the
passage once led, and of course the question arose as to what should be
done.

A Council was held to discuss this problem, at which Maqueda and a few
of the Abati notables were present. To these Oliver explained that even
if that were possible it would be useless to clear out the old passage
and at the end find ourselves once more in the den of lions.

"What, then, is your plan?" asked